Noelle - Summer 2007

Noelle is so special to me. She is at a great age and her little personality is really emerging. Here are a few interesting stories.

Noelle, at 7.5 months, is a computer whiz! Really! She grabbed the keyboard from me and in the span of less than 1-minute she (1) deleted an important e-mail, (2) initiated 3 PowerPoint presentations, (3) developed a rough draft of a title slide for one of the presentations, (4) made the cursor disappear, and (5) logged out as a user to complete her session. All this, while simultaneously testing the structural integrity of the keyboard. Amazing!

I went to pick up Noelle from the nursery a few weeks ago following Church service. A mother and daughter were peacefully caring for a few infants. The mother was walking Noelle around. When Noelle saw me, she immediately started crying. I'm thinking about saying, "She loves her Daddy - I don't know why she started crying when she saw me". Instead I say, "Oh Noelle" and I take her in my arms. She immediately starts to stop crying. I realize that she was overcome by emotion when she saw me, because she was in a strange environment with people she did not know and her Daddy came for her. It felt so good to comfort her, she had tears in her eyes and her breathing was still heavy from crying. I really cherished the moment.

Noelle outgrew her creaky bassinet, so we are in transition as far as sleeping arrangements go. So, Noelle is now sleeping at night in between us. Once she rolled to me and gently grabbed my face with both of her hands. She then rolled over to face her mommy for the same embrace. Sometimes she falls asleep gently holding her mommy's face with both her hands. Very sweet.

Misc. Noelle is so curious about the world and she loves to look at things. She is very fond of Athena and Athena likes to lick her feet. She really dislikes having her nose wiped. Connor is so abrupt with Noelle, and we are always concerned about her safety. His antics and actions often make her laugh. The growing bond between them is very evident. She usually greets Connor with a big grin and sometimes a little squeal. Connor is always saying, "I want to see Noelle!". He is quick to run to her side if she is crying. Noelle is starting to experiment more with sounds (na, na, na, na & ma, ma, ma, ma). Recently, I was standing over the kitchen table and she grabbed my shirt. I looked down and she was beaming up at me. Usually, she is looking at the object she is grabbing, so this was a special moment for me. She is gradually learning sign language and she will open and close her hands if she wants to nurse. She sometimes twirls her hands, and sometimes she will do this for me if I initiate the same motion. We smile at each other. Often she smiles at someone and then turns away shyly, sometimes nestling into mommy's shoulder.